Epic Moment With George Stroumboulopoulos

I bumped into (or rather, aggressively stalked) George Stroumboulopoulos at EPIC Expo day one. Momentarily forgetting I was wearing a large yellow Fair Trade Banana suit I non-discretely creeped up on him from behind. Catching a glimpse of something large and yellow, George turned to face me. Banana banter ensued, threats and promises were made, and the next day I got my Projecting Change interview with Strombo.

I hope you had as much fun watching the interview as I had filming it! A few of my favorite George Stroumboulopoulos quotes…

Q: How are your Projecting Change?

I am trying to eat more sustainably…it became clear to me how I could eat differently not just for my own health… but why its my ecological responsibility to eat a certain way.

Q: What is the most important outcome of an environmental and social issues film festival like Projecting Change?

It’s kinda gotta be like a punk rock song … it has to have you sing along and feel good in the moment but the next day you have to still be angry.

The trick to good punk rock is, I really feel good today! Tomorrow I’m going to break a window – whatever the proverbial breaking of the window is. I think a good documentary should do that.

Q: We’re talking Watch, Engage, Act?

Engage is one of those things where there is so much responsibility put on the filmmaker to engage the audience. No! You just tell a good story, it’s up to the audiences to engage.

We don’t have to campaign to get people to care, people need to care, what we need to do, what you need to do, what this needs to do, is grab the people who already care and say ‘here is where we are going’ hopefully the audience will come along.

The filmmaker does half, the audience has to do half, there will be no spoon feeding.

T: Tip from George on how Projecting Change can start some fires!

People should be motivated, you need to go find out where the gasoline lies and throw a match in that pool – as opposed to try to pour gasoline everywhere. Where is the gasoline? Light that on fire!

I was impressed, delighted and astounded by George’s genuine goodness and passion for change. A truly humble and outstanding Canadian, he didn’t even mind when I incredibly ineptly took three tries to get his name right – as seen above. Stay tuned for a video blog later in the week of George moderating an arm wrestle between the Fair Trade Banana and the Poverty Gorilla (checkout the pics on facebook).

In the words of Stroumboulopoulos, lets go break some proverbial windows!